07 January 2009

Exploding Brew Kettles?!?

News from Lew Bryson's excellent blog indicates that the typically excellent Selin's Grove Brewing suffered a catastrophic failure of its brewing kettle:

One usually reliable source of mine tells me that Selin's Grove has experienced "the structural collapse of their direct-fired kettle" on January 1st. It "shattered like glass" while water was being heated in it. Terrible thing to happen on the first day of the new year.

Supposedly a new kettle has been found, but until then no growler fills.

Now, just how exactly does a brew kettle "shatter like glass"? Anyone else heard of such a thing happening?


UPDATE: They ended up calling in a welder to patch up the old kettle, but Steve Leason said they're still in the market for a new--or at least newer--brew kettle. Growler sales were still restricted as of last week--a crying shame, as the IPA and Framboise were in peak form.

2 comments:

Lew Bryson said...

Well, it was a a direct-fire kettle, which would make it more prone, I'd think, but still...You'd think these things were taken into account by the engineers. I've never heard of such a thing, but I just write about it, y'know?

Anonymous said...

This is sad news, hopefully it has been fixed. The BrewPub has been a favorite of mine since I attended college in Selinsgrove. Great beer, hopefully they can get it flowing again.